CHAPTER XXV

FATHER AND SON

Norton had ignored the scene between Helen and Tom and his stunned mind was

making a desperate fight to prepare for the struggle that was inevitable.

The thing that gave him fresh courage was the promise the girl had repeated

that she would go. Somehow he had grown to trust her implicitly. He hadn't

time as yet to realize the pity and pathos of such a trust in such an hour.

He simply believed that she would keep her word. He had to win his fight

now with the boy without the surrender of his secret. Could he do it? It

was doubtful, but he was going to try. His back was to the wall.

Tom took another step into the room and the father turned, drew his tall

figure erect in an instinctive movement of sorrowful dignity and reserve

and walked to the table.

All traces of anger had passed from the boy's handsome young face and a

look of regret had taken its place. He began speaking very quietly and

reverently:

"Now, Dad, we must face this thing. It's a tragedy for you perhaps----"

The father interrupted:

"How big a tragedy, my son, I hope that you may never know----"

"Anyhow," Tom went on frankly, "I am ashamed of the way I acted. But you're

a manly man and you can understand."

"Yes."

"I know that all you've done is because you love me----"

"How deeply, you can never know."

"I'm sorry if I forgot for a moment the respect I owe you, the reverence

and love I hold for you--I've always been proud of you, Dad--of your

stainless name, of the birthright you have given me--you know this----"

"Yet it's good to hear you say it!"

"And now that I've said this, you'd as well know first as last that any

argument about Helen is idle between us. I'm not going to give up the woman

I love!"

"Ah, my boy----"

Tom lifted his hand emphatically:

"It's no use! You needn't tell me that her blood is tainted--I don't

believe it!"

The father came closer:

"You _do_ believe it! In the first mad riot of passion you're only trying

to fool yourself."

"It's unthinkable, I tell you! and I've made my decision"--he paused a

moment and then demanded: "How do you know her blood is tainted?"

The father answered firmly:

"I have the word both of her mother and father."

"Well, I won't take their word. Some natures are their own defense. On them

no stain can rest, and I stake my life on Helen's!"

"My boy----"

"Oh, I know what you're going to say--as a theory it's quite correct. But

it's one thing to accept a theory, another to meet the thing in your own

heart before God alone with your life in your hands."

"What do you mean by that?" the father asked savagely.

"That for the past hour I've been doing some thinking on my own account."

"That's just what you haven't been doing. You haven't thought at all. If

you had, you'd know that you can't marry this girl. Come, come, my boy,

remember that you have reason and because you have this power that's bigger

than all passion, all desire, all impulse, you're a man, not a brute----"

"All right," the boy broke in excitedly, "submit it to reason! I'll stand

the test--it's more than you can do. I love this girl--she's my mate. She

loves me and I am hers. Haven't I taken my stand squarely on Nature and her

highest law?"

"No!"

"What's higher? Social fictions--prejudices?"

The father lifted his head:

"Prejudices! You know as well as I that the white man's instinct of racial

purity is not prejudice, but God's first law of life--the instinct of

self-preservation! The lion does not mate with the jackal!"

The boy flushed angrily:

"The girl I love is as fair as you or I."

"Even so," was the quick reply, "we inherit ninety per cent. of character

from our dead ancestors! Born of a single black progenitor, she is still a

negress. Change every black skin in America to-morrow to the white of a

lily and we'd yet have ten million negroes--ten million negroes whose

blood relatives are living in Africa the life of a savage."

"Granted that what you say it true--and I refuse to believe it--I still

have the right to live my own life in my own way."

"No man has the right to live life in his own way if by that way he imperil

millions."

"And whom would I imperil?"

"The future American. No white man ever lived who desired to be a negro.

Every negro longs to be a white man. No black man has ever added an iota to

the knowledge of the world of any value to humanity. In Helen's body flows

sixteen million tiny drops of blood--one million black--poisoned by the

inheritance of thousands of years of savage cruelty, ignorance, slavery and

superstition. The life of generations are bound up in you. In you are wrapt

the onward years. Man's place in nature is no longer a myth. You are bound

by the laws of heredity--laws that demand a nobler not a baser race of men!

Shall we improve the breed of horses and degrade our men? You have no right

to damn a child with such a legacy!"

"But I tell you I'm not trying to--I refuse to see in her this stain!"

The father strode angrily to the other side of the room in an effort to

control his feelings:

"Because you refuse to think, my boy!" he cried in agony. "I tell you, you

can't defy these laws! They are eternal--never new, never old--true a

thousand years ago, to-day, to-morrow and on a million years, when this

earth is thrown, a burnt cinder, into God's dust heap. I can't tell you

what I feel--it strangles me!"

"No, and I can't understand it. I feel one thing, the touch of the hand of

the woman I love; hear one thing, the music of her voice----"

"And in that voice, my boy, I hear the crooning of a savage mother! But

yesterday our negroes were brought here from the West Soudan, black,

chattering savages, nearer the anthropoid ape than any other living

creature. And you would dare give to a child such a mother? Who is this

dusky figure of the forest with whom you would cross your blood? In old

Andy there you see him to-day, a creature half child, half animal. For

thousands of years beyond the seas he stole his food, worked his wife, sold

his child, and ate his brother--great God, could any tragedy be more

hideous than our degradation at last to his racial level!"

"It can't happen! It's a myth!"

"It's the most dangerous thing that threatens the future!" the father cried

with desperate earnestness. "A pint of ink can make black gallons of water.

The barriers once down, ten million negroes can poison the source of life

and character for a hundred million whites. This nation is great for one

reason only--because of the breed of men who created the Republic! Oh, my

boy, when you look on these walls at your fathers, don't you see this,

don't you feel this, don't you know this?"

Tom shook his head:

"To-night I feel and know one thing. I love her! We don't choose whom we

love----"

"Ah, but if we are more than animals, if we reason, we do choose whom we

marry! Marriage is not merely a question of personal whim, impulse or

passion. It's the one divine law on which human society rests. There are

always men who hear the call of the Beast and fall below their ideals, who

trail the divine standards of life in the dust as they slink under the

cover of night----"

"At least, I'm not trying to do that!"

"No, worse! You would trample them under your feet at noon in defiance of

the laws of man and God! You're insane for the moment. You're mad with

passion. You're not really listening to me at all--I feel it!"

"Perhaps I'm not----"

"Yet you don't question the truth of what I've said. You can't question it.

You just stand here blind and maddened by desire, while I beg and plead,

saying in your heart: 'I want this woman and I'm going to have her.' You've

never faced the question that she's a negress--you can't face it, and yet I

tell you that I know it's true!"

The boy turned on his father and studied him angrily for a moment, his blue

eyes burning into his, his face flushed and his lips curled with the

slightest touch of incredulity:

"And do you really believe all you've been saying to me?"

"As I believe in God!"

With a quick, angry gesture he faced his father:

"Well, you've had a mighty poor way of showing it! If you really believed

all you've been saying to me, you wouldn't stop to eat or sleep until every

negro is removed from physical contact with the white race. And yet on the

day that I was born you placed me in the arms of a negress! The first human

face on which I looked was hers. I grew at her breast. You let her love me

and teach me to love her. You keep only negro servants. I grow up with

them, fall into their lazy ways, laugh at their antics and see life through

their eyes, and now that my life touches theirs at a thousand points of

contact, you tell me that we must live together and yet a gulf separates

us! Why haven't you realized this before? If what you say about Helen is

true, in God's name--I ask it out of a heart quivering with anguish--why

haven't you realized it before? I demand an answer! I have the right to

know!"

Norton's head was lowered while the boy poured out his passionate protest

and he lifted it at the end with a look of despair:

"You have the right to know, my boy. But the South has not a valid answer

to your cry. The Negro is not here by my act or will, and their continued

presence is a constant threat against our civilization. Equality is the law

of life and we dare not grant it to the negro unless we are willing to

descend to his racial level. We cannot lift him to ours. This truth forced

me into a new life purpose twenty years ago. The campaign I have just

fought and won is the first step in a larger movement to find an answer to

your question in the complete separation of the races--and nothing is surer

than that the South will maintain the purity of her home! It's as fixed as

her faith in God!"

The boy was quiet a moment and looked at the tall figure with a queer

expression:

"Has she maintained it?"

"Yes."

"Is her home life clean?"

"Yes."

"And these millions of children born in the shadows--these mulattoes?"

The older man's lips trembled and his brow clouded:

"The lawless have always defied the law, my son, North, South, East and

West, but they have never defended their crimes. Dare to do this thing

that's in your heart and you make of crime a virtue and ask God's blessing

on it. The difference between the two things is as deep and wide as the

gulf between heaven and hell."

"My marriage to Helen will be the purest and most solemn act of my

life----"

"Silence, sir!" the father thundered in a burst of uncontrollable passion,

as he turned suddenly on him, his face blanched and his whole body

trembling. "I tell you once for all that your marriage to this girl is a

physical and moral impossibility! And I refuse to argue with you a question

that's beyond all argument!"

The two men glared at each other in a duel of wills in which steel cut

steel without a tremor of yielding. And then with a sudden flash of anger,

Tom turned on his heel crying:

"All right, then!"

With swift, determined step he moved toward the door. The father grasped

the corner of the table for support:

"Tom!"

His hands were extended in pitiful appeal when the boy stopped as if in

deep study, turned, looked at him, and walked deliberately back:

"I'm going to ask you some personal questions!"

In spite of his attempt at self-control, Norton's face paled. He drew

himself up with an attempt at dignified adjustment to the new situation,

but his hands were trembling as he nervously repeated:

"Personal questions?"

"Yes. There's something very queer about your position. Your creed forbids

you to receive a negro as a social equal?"

"Yes."

The boy suddenly lifted his head:

"Why did you bring Helen into this house?"

"I didn't bring her."

"You didn't invite her?"

"No."

"She says that you did."

"She thought so."

"She got an invitation?"

"Yes."

"Signed with your name?"

"Yes, yes."

"Who dared to write such a letter without your knowledge?"

"I can't tell you that."

"I demand it!"

Norton struggled between anger and fear and finally answered in measured

tones:

"It was forged by an enemy who wished to embarrass me in this campaign."

"You know who wrote it?"

"I suspect."

"You don't _know_?"

"I said, I suspect," was the angry retort.

"And you didn't kill him?"

"In this campaign my hands were tied."

The boy, watching furtively his father's increasing nervousness and anger,

continued his questions in a slower, cooler tone:

"When you returned and found her here, you could have put her out?"

"Yes," Norton answered tremblingly, "and I ought to have done it!"

"But you didn't?"

"No."

"Why?"

The father fumbled his watch chain, moved uneasily and finally said with

firmness:

"I am Helen's guardian!"

The boy lifted his brows:

"You are supposed to be his attorney only. Why did you, of all men on

earth, accept such a position?"

"I felt that I had to."

"And the possibility of my meeting this girl never occurred to you? You,

who have dinned into my ears from childhood that I should keep myself clean

from the touch of such pollution--why did you take the risk?"

"A sense of duty to one to whom I felt bound."

"Duty?"

"Yes."

"It must have been deep--what duty?"

Norton lifted his hand in a movement of wounded pride:

"My boy!"

"Come, come, Dad, don't shuffle; this thing's a matter of life and death

with me and you must be fair----"

"I'm trying----"

"I want to know why you are Helen's guardian, exactly why. We must face

each other to-day with souls bare--why are you her guardian?"

"I--I--can't tell you."

"You've got to tell me!"

"You must trust me in this, my son!"

"I won't do it!" the boy cried, trembling with passion that brought the

tears blinding to his eyes. "We're not father and son now. We face each

other man to man with two lives at stake--hers and mine! You can't ask me

to trust you! I won't do it--I've got to know!"

The father turned away:

"I can't betray this secret even to you, my boy."

"Does any one else share it?"

"Why do you use that queer tone? What do you mean?" The father's last

question was barely breathed.

"Nothing," the boy answered with a toss of his head. "Does any one in this

house suspect it?"

"Possibly."

Again Tom paused, watching keenly:

"On the day you returned and found Helen here, you quarrelled with Cleo?"

Norton wheeled with sudden violence:

"We won't discuss this question further, sir!"

"Yes, we will," was the steady answer through set teeth. "Haven't you been

afraid of Cleo?"

The father's eyes were looking into his now with a steady stare:

"I refuse to be cross-examined, sir!"

Tom ignored his answer:

"Hasn't Cleo been blackmailing you?"

"No--no."

The boy held his father's gaze until it wavered, and then in cold tones

said:

"You are not telling me the truth!"

Norton flinched as if struck:

"Do you know what you are saying. Have you lost your senses?"

Tom held his ground with dogged coolness:

"_Have_ you told me the truth?"

"Yes."

"It's a lie!"

The words were scarcely spoken when Norton's clenched fist struck him a

blow full in the face.

A wild cry of surprise, inarticulate in fury, came from the boy's lips as

he staggered against the table. He glared at his father, drew back a step,

his lips twitching, his breath coming in gasps, and suddenly felt for the

revolver in his pocket.

With a start of horror the father cried:

"My boy!"

The hand dropped limp, he leaned against the table for support and sobbed:

"O God! Let me die!"

Norton rushed to his side, his voice choking with grief:

"Tom, listen!"

"I won't listen!" he hissed. "I never want to hear the sound of your voice

again!"

"Don't say that--you don't mean it!" the father pleaded.

"I do mean it!"

Norton touched his arm tenderly:

"You can't mean it, Tom. You're all I've got in the world. You mustn't say

that. Forgive me--I was mad. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't mean

to strike you. I forgot for a moment that you're a man, proud and sensitive

as I am----"

The boy tore himself free from his touch and crossed the room with quick,

angry stride and turned:

"Well, you'd better not forget it again"--he paused and drew himself erect.

"You're my father, but I tell you to your face that I hate and loathe

you----"

The silver-gray head drooped:

"That I should have lived to hear it!"

"And I want you to understand one thing," Tom went on fiercely, "if an

angel from heaven told me that Helen's blood was tainted, I'd demand

proofs! You have shown none, and I'm not going to give up the woman I

love!"

Norton supported himself by the table and felt his way along its edges as

if blinded. His eyes were set with a half-mad stare as he gripped Tom's

shoulders:

"I love you, my boy, with a love beyond your ken, a love that can be fierce

and cruel when God calls, and sooner than see you marry this girl, I'll

kill you with my own hands if I must!"

The answer came slowly:

"And you can't guess what's happened?"

"Guess--what's--happened!" the father repeated in a whisper. "What do you

mean?"

"That I'm married already!"

With hands uplifted, his features convulsed, the father fell back, his

voice a low piteous shriek:

"Merciful God!--No!"

"Married an hour before you dragged me away in that campaign!" he shouted

in triumph. "I knew you'd never consent and so I took matters into my own

hands!"

With a leap Norton grasped the boy again and shook him madly:

"Married already? It's not true, I tell you! It's not true. You're lying to

me--lying to gain time--it's not true!"

"You wish me to swear it?"

"Silence, sir!" the father cried in solemn tones. "You are my son--this is

my house--I order you to be silent!"

"Before God, I swear it's true! Helen is my lawful----"

"Don't say it! It's false--you lie, I tell you!" Again the father shook him

with cruel violence, his eyes staring with the glitter of a maniac.

Tom seized the trembling hands and threw them from his shoulders with a

quick movement of anger:

"If that's all you've got to say, sir, excuse me, I'll go to my wife!"

He wheeled, slammed the door and was gone.

The father stared a moment, stunned, looked around blankly, placed his

hands over his ears and held them, crying:

"God have mercy!"

He rushed to a window and threw it open. The band was playing "For He's a

Jolly Good Fellow!" The mocking strains rolled over his prostrate soul. He

leaned heavily against the casement and groaned:

"My God!"

He slammed the sash, staggered back into the room, lifted his eyes in a

leaden stare at the portrait over the mantel, and then rushed toward it

with uplifted arms and streaming eyes:

"It's not true, dearest! Don't believe it--it's not true, I tell you! It's

not true!"

The voice sank into inarticulate sobs, he reeled and fell, a limp, black

heap on the floor.

CHAPTER XXV

THE ONE CHANCE

The dim light began to creep into the darkened brain at last. Norton's eyes

opened wider and the long arms felt their way on the floor until they

touched a rug and then a chair. He tried to think what had happened and why

he was lying there. It seemed a dream, half feverish, half restful. His

head was aching and he was very tired.

"What's the matter?" he murmured, unable to lift his head.

He was whirling through space again and the room faded. Once before in his

life had he been knocked insensible. From the trenches before Petersburg in

the last days of the war he had led his little band of less than five

hundred ragged, half-starved, tatterdemalions in a mad charge against the

line in front. A bomb from a battery on a hilltop exploded directly before

them. He had been thrown into the air and landed on a heap of dead bodies,

bruised and stunned into insensibility. He had waked feeling the dead limbs

and wondering if they were his own.

He rubbed his hands now, first over his head, and then over each limb, to

find if all were there. He felt his body to see if a bomb had torn part of

it away.

And then the light of memory suddenly flashed into the darkened mind and

he drew himself to his knees and fumbled his way to a chair.

"Married? Married already!" he gasped. "O, God, it can't be true! And he

said, 'married an hour before you dragged me away in that campaign'"--it

was too hideous! He laughed in sheer desperation and again his brain

refused to work. He pressed his hands to his forehead and looked about the

room, rose, staggered to the bell and rang for Andy.

When his black face appeared, he lifted his bloodshot eyes and said feebly:

"Whiskey----"

The negro bowed:

"Yassah!"

He pulled himself together and tried to walk. He could only reel from one

piece of furniture to the next. His head was on fire. He leaned again

against the mantel for support and dropped his head on his arm in utter

weariness:

"I must think! I must think!"

Slowly the power to reason returned.

"What can I do? What can I do?" he kept repeating mechanically, until the

only chance of escape crept slowly into his mind. He grasped it with

feverish hope.

If Tom had married but an hour before leaving on that campaign, he hadn't

returned until to-day. But had he? It was, of course, a physical

possibility. From the nearby counties, he could have ridden a swift horse

through the night, reached home and returned the next day without his

knowing it. It was possible, but not probable. He wouldn't believe it until

he had to.

If he had married in haste the morning he had left town and had only

rejoined Helen to-night, it was no marriage. It was a ceremony that had no

meaning. In law it was void and could be annulled immediately. But if he

were really married in all that word means--his mind stopped short and

refused to go on.

He would cross that bridge when he came to it. But he must find out at once

and he must know before he saw Tom again.

His brain responded with its old vigor under the pressure of the new

crisis. One by one his powers returned and his mind was deep in its tragic

problem when Andy entered the room with a tray on which stood a decanter of

whiskey, a glass of water and two small empty glasses.

The negro extended the tray. Norton was staring into space and paid no

attention.

Andy took one of the empty glasses and clicked it against the other. There

was still no sign of recognition until he pushed the tray against Norton's

arm and cleared his throat:

"Ahem! Ahem!"

The dazed man turned slowly and looked at the tray and then at the grinning

negro:

"What's this?"

Andy's face kindled with enthusiasm:

"Dat is moonshine, sah--de purest mountain dew--yassah!"

"Whiskey?"

"Yassah," was the astonished reply, "de whiskey you jis ring fer, sah!"

"Take it back!"

Andy could not believe his ears. The major was certainly in a queer mood.

Was he losing his mind?

There was nothing to do but obey. He bowed and turned away:

"Yassah."

Norton watched him with a dazed look and cried suddenly:

"Where are you going?"

"Back!"

"Stop!"

Andy stopped with a sudden jerk:

"Yassah!"

"Put that tray down on the table!"

The negro obeyed but watched his master out of the corners of his eye:

"Yassah!"

Again Norton forgot Andy's existence, his eyes fixed in space, his mind in

a whirl of speculation in which he felt his soul and body sinking deeper.

The negro was watching him with increasing suspicion and fear as he turned

his head in the direction of the table.

"What are you standing there for?" he asked sharply.

"You say stop, sah."

"Well, get away--get out!" Norton cried with sudden anger.

Andy backed rapidly:

"Yassah!"

As he reached the doorway Norton's command rang so sharply that the negro

spun around on one foot:

"Wait!"

"Y--yas--sah!"

The master took a step toward the trembling figure with an imperious

gesture:

"Come here!"

Andy approached gingerly, glancing from side to side for the best way of

retreat in case of emergency:

"What's the matter with you?" Norton demanded.

Andy laughed feebly:

"I--I--I dunno, sah; I wuz des wonderin' what's de matter wid you, sah!"

"Tell me!"

The negro's teeth were chattering as he glanced up:

"Yassah! I tell all I know, sah!"

Norton fixed him with a stern look:

"Has Tom been back here during the past four weeks?"

"Nasah!" was the surprised answer, "he bin wid you, sah!"

The voice softened to persuasive tones:

"He hasn't slipped back here even for an hour since I've been gone?"

"I nebber seed him!"

"I didn't ask you," Norton said threateningly, "whether you'd 'seed'

him"--he paused and dropped each word with deliberate emphasis--"I asked

you if you knew whether he'd been here?"

Andy mopped his brow and glanced at his inquisitor with terror:

"Nasah, I don't know nuttin', sah!"

"Haven't you lied to me?"

"Yassah! yassah," the negro replied in friendly conciliation. "I has

per-var-i-cated sometimes--but I sho is tellin' you de truf dis time, sah!"

The master glared at him a moment and suddenly sprang at his throat, both

hands clasping his neck with a strangling grip. Andy dropped spluttering

to his knees.

"You're lying to me!" Norton growled. "Out with the truth now"--his grip

tightened--"out with it, or I'll choke it out of you!"

Andy grasped the tightening fingers and drew them down:

"Fer Gawd's sake, major, doan' do dat!"

"Has Tom been back here during the past weeks to see Miss Helen?"

Andy struggled with the desperate fingers:

"Doan' do dat, major--doan' do dat! I ain't holdin' nuttin' back--I let it

all out, sah!"

The grip slackened:

"Then out with the whole truth!"

"Yassah. Des tell me what ye wants me ter say, sah, an' I sho say hit!"

"Bah! You miserable liar!" Norton cried in disgust, hurling him to the

floor, and striding angrily from the room. "You're all in this thing, all

of you! You're all in it--all in it!"

Andy scrambled to his feet and rushed to the window in time to see him

hurry down the steps and disappear in the shadows of the lawn. He stood

watching with open mouth and staring eyes:

"Well, 'fore de Lawd, ef he ain't done gone plum crazy!"

CHAPTER XXVI

BETWEEN TWO FIRES

So intent was Andy's watch on the lawn, so rapt his wonder and terror at

the sudden assault, he failed to hear Cleo's step as she entered the room,

walked to his side and laid her hand on his shoulder:

"Andy----"

With a loud groan he dropped to his knees:

"De Lawd save me!"

Cleo drew back with amazement at the prostrate figure:

"What on earth's the matter?"

"Oh--oh, Lawd," he shivered, scrambling to his feet and mopping his brow.

"Lordy, I thought de major got me dat time sho!"

"You thought the major had you?" Cleo cried incredulously.

Andy ran back to the window and looked out again:

"Yassam--yassam! De major try ter kill me--he's er regular maniacker--gone

wild----"

"What about?"

The black hands went to his throat:

"Bout my windpipes, 'pears like!"

"What did he do?"

"Got me in de _gills_!"

"Why?"

"Dunno," was the whispered answer as he peered out the window. "He asked me

if Mr. Tom been back here in de past fo' weeks----"

"Asked if Tom had been back here?"

"Yassam!"

"What a fool question, when he's had the boy with him every day! He must

have gone crazy."

"Yassam!" Andy agreed with unction as he turned back into the room and

threw both hands high above his head in wild gestures. "He say we wuz all

in it! Dat what he say--we wuz all in it! _All_ in it!"

"In what?"

"Gawd knows!" he cried, as his hands again went to his neck to feel if

anything were broken, "Gawd knows, but he sho wuz gittin' inside er me!"

Cleo spoke with stern appeal:

"Well, you're a man; you'll know how to defend yourself next time, won't

you?"

"Yassam!--yas, m'am!" Andy answered boldly. "Oh, I fit 'im! Don't you think

I didn't fight him! I fit des lak er wild-cat--yassam!"

The woman's eyes narrowed and her voice purred:

"You're going to stand by me now?"

"Dat I is!" was the brave response.

"You'll do anything for me?"

"Yassam!"

"Defend me with your life if the major attacks me to-night?"

"Dat I will!"

Cleo leaned close:

"You'll die for me?"

"Yassam! yassam--I'll _die_ fer you--I'll die fer ye; of cose I'll _die_

for ye! B-b-but fer Gawd's sake what ye want wid er dead nigger?"

Andy leaped back in terror as Norton's tall figure suddenly appeared in the

door, his rumpled iron-gray hair gleaming in the shadows, his eyes flashing

with an unnatural light. He quickly crossed the room and lifted his index

finger toward Cleo:

"Just a word with you----"

The woman's hands met nervously, and she glanced at Andy:

"Very well, but I want a witness. Andy can stay."

Norton merely glanced at the negro:

"Get out!"

"Yassah!"

"Stay where you are!" Cleo commanded.

"Y--yassam"--Andy stammered, halting.

"Get out!" Norton growled.

Andy jumped into the doorway at a single bound:

"Done out, sah!"

The major lifted his hand and the negro stopped:

"Tell Minerva I want to see her."

Andy hastened toward the hall, the whites of his eyes shining:

"Yassah, but she ain't in de kitchen, sah!"

"Find her and bring her here!" Norton thundered. His words rang like the

sudden peal of a gun at close quarters:

Andy jumped:

"Yassah, yassah, I fetch her! I fetch her!" As he flew through the door he

repeated humbly:

"I fetch her, right away, sah--right away, sah!"

Cleo watched his cowardly desertion with lips curled in scorn.

CHAPTER XXVII

A SURPRISE

For a while Norton stood with folded arms gazing at Cleo, his eyes

smouldering fires of wonder and loathing. The woman was trembling beneath

his fierce scrutiny, but he evidently had not noted the fact. His mind was

busy with a bigger problem of character and the possible depths to which a

human being might fall and still retain the human form. He was wondering

how a man of his birth and breeding, the heir to centuries of culture and

refinement, of high thinking and noble aspirations, could ever have sunk to

the level of this yellow animal--this bundle of rags and coarse flesh! It

was incredible! His loathing for her was surpassed by one thing only--his

hatred of himself.

He was free in this moment as never before. In the fearlessness of death

soul and body stood erect and gazed calmly out on time and eternity.

There was one thing about the woman he couldn't understand. That she was

without moral scruple--that she was absolutely unmoral in her fundamental

being--he could easily believe. In fact, he could believe nothing else.

That she would not hesitate to defy every law of God or man to gain her

end, he never doubted for a moment. But that a creature of her cunning and

trained intelligence could deliberately destroy herself by such an act of

mad revenge was unreasonable. He began dimly to suspect that her plans had

gone awry. How completely she had been crushed by her own trap he could not

yet guess.

She was struggling frantically now to regain her composure but his sullen

silence and his piercing eyes were telling on her nerves. She was on the

verge of screaming in his face when he said in low, intense tones:

"You did get even with me--didn't you?"

"Yes!"

"I didn't think _you_ quite capable of this!"

His words were easier to bear than silence. She felt an instant relief and

pulled herself together with a touch of bravado:

"And now that you see I am, what are you going to do about it?"

"That's my secret," was the quiet reply. "There's just one thing that

puzzles me!"

"Indeed!"

"How you could willfully and deliberately do this beastly thing?"

"For one reason only, I threw them together and brought about their love

affair----"

"Revenge--yes," Norton interrupted, "but the boy--you don't hate him--you

can't. You've always loved him as if he were your own----"

"Well, what of it?"

"I'm wondering----"

"What?"

His voice was low, vibrant but quiet:

"Why, if your mother instincts have always been so powerful and you've

loved my boy with such devotion"--the tones quickened to sudden

menace--"why you were so willing to give up your own child that day twenty

years ago?"

He held her gaze until her own fell:

"I--I--don't understand you," she said falteringly.

He seized her with violence and drew her squarely before him:

"Look at me!" he cried fiercely. "Look me in the face!" He paused until she

slowly lifted her eyes to his and finally glared at him with hate. "I want

to see your soul now if you've got one. There's just one chance and I'm

clutching at that as a drowning man a straw."

"Well?" she asked defiantly.

Norton's words were hurled at her, each one a solid shot:

"Would you have given up that child without a struggle--if she had really

been your own?"

"Why--what--do you--mean?" Cleo asked, her eyes shifting.

"You know what I mean. If Helen is really your child, why did you give her

up so easily that day?"

"Why?" she repeated blankly.

"Answer my question!"

With an effort she recovered her composure:

"You know why! I was mad. I was a miserable fool. I did it because you

asked it. I did it to please you, and I've cursed myself for it ever

since."

Norton's grip slowly relaxed, and he turned thoughtfully away. The woman's

hand went instinctively to the bruises he had left on her arms as she

stepped back nearer the door and watched him furtively.

"It's possible, yes!" he cried turning again to face her suddenly. "And yet

if you are human how could you dare defy the laws of man and God to bring

about this marriage?"

"It's not a question of marriage yet," she sneered. "You've simply got to

acknowledge her, that's all. That's why I brought her here. That's why I've

helped their love affair. You're in my power now. You've got to tell Tom

that Helen is my daughter, and yours--his half sister! Now that they're in

love with one another you've got to do it!"

Norton drew back in amazement:

"You mean to tell me that you don't know that they are married?"

With a cry of surprise and terror, the woman leaped to his side, her voice

a whisper:

"Married? Who says they are married?"

"Tom has just said so."

"But they are not married!" she cried hysterically. "They can't marry!"

Norton fixed her with a keen look:

"They _are_ married!"

The woman wrung her hands nervously:

"But you can separate them if you tell them the truth. That's all you've

got to do. Tell them now--tell them at once!"

Never losing the gaze with which he was piercing her soul Norton said in

slow menacing tones:

"There's another way!"

He turned from her suddenly and walked toward the desk. She followed a

step, trembling.

"Another way"--she repeated.

Norton turned:

"An old way brave men have always known--I'll take it if I must!"

Chilled with fear Cleo glanced in a panic about the room and spoke feebly:

"You--you--don't mean----"

Minerva and Andy entered cautiously as Norton answered:

"No matter what I mean, it's enough for you to know that I'm free--free

from you--I breathe clean air at last!"

Minerva shot Cleo a look:

"Praise God!"

Cleo extended a hand in pleading:

"Major----"

"That will do now!" he said sternly. "Go!"

Cleo turned hurriedly to the door leading toward the stairs.

"Not that way!" Norton called sharply. "Tom has no further need of your

advice. Go to the servants' quarters and stay there. I am the master of

this house to-night!"

Cleo slowly crossed the room and left through the door leading to the

kitchen, watching Norton with terror. Minerva broke into a loud laugh and

Andy took refuge behind her ample form.

CHAPTER XXVIII

VIA DOLOROSA

Minerva was still laughing at the collapse of her enemy and Andy sheltering

himself behind her when a sharp call cut her laughter short:

"Minerva!"

"Yassah"--she answered soberly.

"You have been a faithful servant to me," Norton began, "you have never

lied----"

"An' I ain't gwine ter begin now, sah."

He searched her black face keenly:

"Did Tom slip back here to see Miss Helen while I was away on this last

trip?"

Minerva looked at Andy, fumbled with her apron, started to speak, hesitated

and finally admitted feebly:

"Yassah!"

Andy's eyes fairly bulged:

"De Lordy, major, I didn't know dat, sah!"

Norton glanced at him:

"Shut up!"

"You ain't gwine ter be hard on 'em, major?" Minerva pleaded.

He ignored her interruption and went on evenly:

"How many times did he come?"

"Twice, sah."

"He sho come in de night time den!" Andy broke in. "I nebber seed 'im

once!"

Norton bent close:

"How long did he stay?"

Minerva fidgeted, hesitated again and finally said:

"Once he stay about er hour----"

"And the other time?"

She looked in vain for a way of escape, the perspiration standing in beads

on her shining black face:

"He stay all night, sah."

A moment of stillness followed. Norton's eyes closed, and his face became a

white mask. He breathed deeply and then spoke quietly:

"You--you knew they were married?"

"Yassah!" was the quick reply. "I seed 'em married. Miss Helen axed me,

sah."

Andy lifted his hands in solemn surprise and walled his eyes at Minerva:

"Well, 'fore Gawd!"

Another moment of silence and Andy's mouth was still open with wonder when

a call like the crack of a revolver suddenly rang through the room:

"Andy!"

The negro dropped to his knees and lifted his hands:

"Don't do nuttin' ter me, sah! 'Fore de Lawd, major, I 'clare I nebber

knowed it! Dey fool me, sah--I'd a tole you sho!"

Norton frowned:

"Shut your mouth and get up."

"Yassah!" Andy cried. "Hit's shet an' I'se up!"

He scrambled to his feet and watched his master.

"You and Minerva go down that back stairway into the basement, fasten the

windows and lock the doors."

Andy's eyes were two white moons in the shadows as he cried through

chattering teeth:

"G--g--odder mighty--what--what's de matter, major?"

"Do as I tell you, quick!"

Andy dodged and leaped toward the door:

"R--right away, sah!"

"Pay no attention to anything Mr. Tom may say to you----"

"Nasah," Andy gasped. "I pay no 'tension ter nobody, sah!"

"When you've fastened everything below, do the same on this floor and come

back here--I want you."

"Y-y-yas--sah! R-r-r-right a-way, sah!"

Andy backed out, beckoning frantically to Minerva. She ignored him and

watched Norton as he turned toward a window and looked vaguely out. As Andy

continued his frantic calls she slipped to the doorway and whispered:

"G'long! I be dar in er minute. You po' fool, you can't talk nohow. You're

skeered er de major. I'm gwine do my duty now, I'm gwine ter tell him

sumfin' quick----"

Norton wheeled on her with sudden fury:

"Do as I tell you! Do as I tell you!"

Minerva dodged at each explosion, backing away. She paused and extended her

hand pleadingly:

"Can't I put in des one little word, sah?"

"Not another word!" he thundered, advancing on her--"Go!"

"Yassah!"

"Go! I tell you!"

Dodging again, she hurried below to join Andy. Norton turned back into the

room and stood staring at something that gleamed with sinister brightness

from the top of the little writing desk. An electric lamp with crimson

shade seemed to focus every ray of light on the shining steel and a devil

in the shadows pointed a single finger and laughed:

"It's ready--just where you laid it!"

He took a step toward the desk, stopped and gripped the back of the settee,

steadied himself, and glared at the thing with fascination. He walked

unsteadily to the chair in front of the desk and stared again. His hand

moved to grasp the revolver and hesitated. And then, the last thought of

pity strangled, he gripped the handle, lifted it with quick familiar touch,

grasped the top clasp, loosed the barrel, threw the cylinder open and

examined the shells, dropped them into his hand and saw that there were no

blanks. One by one he slowly replaced them, snapped the cylinder in place

and put the weapon in his pocket.

He glanced about the room furtively, walked to each of the tall French

windows, closed the shutters and carefully drew the heavy draperies. He

turned the switch of the electric lights, extinguishing all in the room

save the small red one burning on the desk. He would need that in a moment.

He walked softly to the foot of the stairs and called:

"Tom!"

Waiting and receiving no answer he called again:

"Tom! Tom!"

A door opened above and the boy answered:

"Well?"

"Just a word, my son," the gentle voice called.

"I've nothing to say, sir! We're packing our trunks to leave at once."

"Yes, yes, I understand," the father answered tenderly. "You're going, of

course, and it can't be helped--but just a minute, my son; we must say

good-by in a decent way, you know--and--I've something to show you before

you go"--the voice broke--"you--won't try to leave without seeing me?"

There was a short silence and the answer came in friendly tones:

"I'll see you. I'll be down in a few minutes."

The father murmured:

"Thank God!"

He hurried back to the library, unlocked a tiny drawer in the desk, drew

out a plain envelope from which he took the piece of paper on which was

scrawled the last message from the boy's mother. His hand trembled as he

read and slowly placed it in a small pigeon-hole.

He took his pen and began to write rapidly on a pad of legal cap paper.

While he was still busy with his writing, in obedience to his orders, Andy

and Minerva returned. They stopped at the doorway and peeped in cautiously

before entering. Astonished and terrified to find the room so dimly lighted

they held a whispered conference in the hall:

"Better not go in dar, chile!" Andy warned.

"Ah, come on, you fool!" Minerva insisted. "He ain't gwine ter hurt us!"

"I tell ye he's wild--he's gone crazy, sho's yer born! I kin feel dem

fingers playin' on my windpipe now!"

"What's he doin' dar at dat desk?" Minerva asked.

"He's writin' good-by ter dis world, I'm tellin' ye, an' hit's time me an'

you wuz makin' tracks!"

"Ah, come on!" the woman urged.

Andy hung back and shook his head:

"Nasah--I done bin in dar an' got my dose!"

"You slip up behin' him an' see what he's writin'," Minerva suggested.

"Na, you slip up!"

"You're de littlest an' makes less fuss," she argued.

"Yes, but you'se de biggest an' you las' de longest in er scrimmage----"

"Ah, go on!" she commanded, getting behind Andy and suddenly pushing him

into the room.

He rushed back into her arms, but she pushed him firmly on:

"G'long, I tell ye, fool, an' see what he's doin'. I back ye up."

Andy balked and she pressed him another step:

"G'long!"

He motioned her to come closer, whispering:

"Ef yer gwine ter stan' by me, for de Lawd's sake stan' by me--don't stan'

by de do'!"

Seeing that retreat was cut off and he was in for it, the negro picked his

way cautiously on tip-toe until he leaned over the chair and tried to read

what his master was writing.

Norton looked up suddenly:

"Andy!"

He jumped in terror:

"I--I--didn't see nuttin', major! Nasah! I nebber seed a thing, sah!"

Norton calmly lifted his head and looked into the black face that had been

his companion so many years:

"I want you to see it!"

"Oh!" Andy cried with surprised relief, "you wants me to see hit"--he

glanced at Minerva and motioned her to come nearer. "Well, dat's different,

sah. Yer know I wouldn't er tried ter steal er glimpse of it ef I'd knowed

ye wuz gwine ter show it ter me. I allers is er gemman, sah!"

Norton handed him the paper:

"I taught you to read and write, Andy. You can do me a little service

to-night--read that!"

"Yassah--yassah," he answered, pompously, adjusting his coat and vest. He

held the paper up before him, struck it lightly with the back of his hand

and cleared his throat:

"Me an' you has bin writin' fer de newspapers now 'bout fifteen

years--yassah"--he paused and hurriedly read the document. "Dis yo' will,

sah? An' de Lawd er mussy, 'tain't more'n ten lines. An' dey hain't nary

one er dem whereases an' haremditaments aforesaids, like de lawyers puts in

dem in de Cote House--hit's des plain writin"--he paused again--"ye gives

de house, an' ten thousand dollars ter Miss Helen an' all yer got ter de

Columnerzation Society ter move de niggers ter er place er dey own!"--he

paused again and walled his eyes at Minerva. "What gwine come er Mr. Tom?"

Norton's head sank:

"He'll be rich without this! Sign your name here as a witness," he said

shortly, picking up the pen.

Andy took the pen, rolled up his sleeve carefully, bent over the desk,

paused and scratched his head:

"Don't yer think, major, dat's er terrible pile er money ter fling loose

'mongst er lot er niggers?"

Norton's eyes were dreaming again and Andy went on insinuatingly: "Now,

wouldn't hit be better, sah, des ter pick out one good _reliable_ nigger

dat yer knows pussonally--an' move him?"

Norton looked up impatiently:

"Sign it!"

"Yassah! Cose, sah, you knows bes', sah, but 'pears ter me lak er powerful

waste er good money des flingin' it broadcast!"

Norton lifted his finger warningly and Andy hastened to sign his name with

a flourish of the pen. He looked at it admiringly:

"Dar now! Dey sho know dat's me! I practise on dat quereque two whole

mont's----"

Norton folded the will, placed it in an envelope, addressed it and lifted

his drawn face:

"Tell the Clerk of the Court that I executed this will to-night and placed

it in this desk"--his voice became inaudible a moment and went on--"Ask him

to call for it to-morrow and record it for me."

Minerva, who had been listening and watching with the keenest interest,

pressed forward and asked in a whisper:

"Yassah, but whar's you gwine ter be? You sho ain't gwine ter die

ter-night?"

Norton quietly recovered himself and replied angrily:

"Do I look as if I were dying?"

"Nasah!--But ain't dey no way dat I kin help ye, major? De young folks is

gwine ter leave, sah----"

"They are not going until I'm ready!" was the grim answer.

"Nasah, but dey's gwine," the black woman replied tenderly. "Ye can't stop

'em long. Lemme plead fur 'em, sah! You wuz young an' wild once,

major"--the silvery gray head sank low and the white lips quivered--"you

take all yer money frum Mister Tom--what he care fer dat now wid love

singin' in his heart? Young folks is young folks----"

Norton lifted his head and stared as in a dream.

"Won't ye hear me, sah? Can't I go upstairs an' speak de good word ter

Mister Tom now an' tell him hit's all right?"

A sudden idea flashed into Norton's mind.

The ruse would be the surest and quickest way to get Tom into the room

alone.

"Yes, yes," he answered, glancing at her. "You can say that to him now----"

Minerva laughed:

"I kin go right up dar to his room now an' tell 'im dat you're er waitin'

here wid yer arms open an' yer heart full er love an' fergiveness?"

"Yes, go at once"--he paused--"and keep Miss Helen there a few minutes. I

want to see him first--you understand----"

"Yassah! yassah!" Minerva cried, hastening to the door followed by Andy. "I

understands, I understands"--she turned on Andy. "Ye hear dat, you fool

nigger? Ain't I done tole you dat hit would all come out right ef I could

des say de good word? Gloree! We gwine ter hab dat weddin' all over agin!

You des wait till yer seen dat cake I gwine ter bake----"

With a quick turn she was about to pass through the door when Andy caught

her sleeve:

"Miss Minerva!"

"Yas, honey!"

"Miss Minerva," he repeated, nervously glancing at Norton, "fer Gawd's

sake don't you leave me now! You'se de only restful pusson in dis house!"

With a triumphant laugh Minerva whispered:

"I'll be right back in a minute, honey!"

Norton had watched with apparent carelessness until Minerva had gone. He

sprang quickly to his feet, crossed the room and spoke in an excited

whisper:

"Andy!"

"Yassah!"

"Go down to that front gate and stay there. Turn back anybody who tries to

come in. Don't you allow a soul to enter the lawn."

"I'll do de best I kin, sah," he replied hastening toward the door.

Norton took an angry step toward him:

"You do exactly as I tell you, sir!"

Andy jumped and replied quickly:

"Yassah, but ef dem serenaders come back here you know dey ain't gwine pay

no 'tensun ter no nigger talkin' to 'em--dat's what dey er celebratin'

erbout----"

Norton frowned and was silent a moment:

"Say that I ask them not to come in."

"I'll tell 'em, sah, but I spec I'll hatter climb er tree 'fore I explains

hit to 'em--but I tell 'em, sah--yassah."

As Andy slowly backed out, Norton said sternly:

"I'll call you when I want you. Stay until I do!"

"Yassah," Andy breathed softly as he disappeared trembling and wondering.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE DREGS IN THE CUP

Norton walked quickly to the window, drew back the draperies, opened the

casement and looked out to see if Andy were eavesdropping. He watched the

lazy figure cross the lawn, glancing back at the house. The full moon, at

its zenith, was shining in a quiet glory, uncanny in its dazzling

brilliance.

He stood drinking in for the last time the perfumed sweetness and languor

of the Southern night. His senses seemed supernaturally acute. He could

distinctly note the odors of the different flowers that were in bloom on

the lawn. A gentle breeze was blowing from the path across the old rose

garden. The faint, sweet odor of the little white carnations his mother had

planted along the walks stole over his aching soul and he was a child again

watching her delicate hands plant them, while grumbling slaves protested at

the soiling of her fingers. She was looking up with a smile saying:

"I love to plant them. I feel that they are my children then, and I'm

making the world sweet and beautiful through them!"

Had he made the world sweeter and more beautiful?

He asked himself the question sternly.

"God knows I've tried for twenty years--and it has come to this!"

The breeze softened, the odor of the pinks grew; fainter and the strange

penetrating smell of the hedge of tuberoses swept in from the other

direction with the chill of Death in its breath.

His heart rose in rebellion. It was too horrible, such an end of life! He

was scarcely forty-nine years old. Never had the blood pulsed through his

veins with stronger throb and never had his vision of life seemed clearer

and stronger than to-day when he had faced those thousands of cheering men

and hinted for the first time his greater plans for uplifting the Nation's

life.

The sense of utter loneliness overwhelmed his soul. The nearest being in

the universe whose presence he could feel was the dead wife and mother.

His eye rested on the portrait tenderly:

"We're coming, dearest, to-night!"

For the first time his spirit faced the mystery of eternity at close range.

He had long speculated in theories of immortality and brooded over the

problem of the world that lies but a moment beyond the senses.

He had clasped hands with Death now and stood face to face, calm and

unafraid. His mind quickened with the thought of the strange world into

which he would be ushered within an hour. Would he know and understand? Or

would the waves of oblivion roll over the prostrate body without a sign? It

couldn't be! The hunger of immortality was too keen for doubt. He would see

and know! The cry rose triumphant within. He refused to perish with the

moth and worm. The baser parts of his being might die--the nobler must

live. There could be no other meaning to this sublimely cruel and mad

decision to kill the body rather than see it dishonored. His eye caught

the twinkle of a star through the branches of a tree-top. His feet would

find the pathway among those shining worlds! There could be no other

meaning to the big thing that throbbed and ached within and refused to be

content to whelp and stable here as a beast of the field. Pride, Honor,

Aspiration, Prayer, meant this or nothing!

"I've made blunders here," he cried, "but I'm searching for the light and

I'll find the face of God!"

The distant shouts of cheering hosts still celebrating in the Square

brought his mind to earth with a sickening shock. He closed the windows,

and drew the curtains. His hands clutched the velvet hangings in a moment

of physical weakness and he steadied himself before turning to call Tom.

Recovering his composure in a measure, his hand touched the revolver in his

pocket, the tall figure instinctively straightened and he walked rapidly

toward the hall. He had barely passed the centre of the room when the boy's

voice distinctly echoed from the head of the stairs:

"I'll be back in a minute, dear!"

He heard the door of Helen's room close softly and the firm step descend

the stairs. The library door opened and closed quickly, and Tom stood

before him, his proud young head lifted and his shoulders squared. The

dignity and reserve of conscious manhood shone in every line of his

stalwart body and spoke in every movement of face and form.

"Well, sir," he said quietly. "It's done now and it can't be helped, you

know."

Norton was stunned by the sudden appearance of the dear familiar form. His

eyes were dim with unshed tears. It was too hideous, this awful thing he

had to do! He stared at him piteously and with an effort walked to his

side, speaking in faltering tones that choked between the words:

"Yes, it's done now--and it can't be helped"--he strangled and couldn't go

on--"I--I--have realized that, my son--but I--I have an old letter from

your mother--that I wanted to show you before you go--you'll find it on the

desk there."

He pointed to the desk on which burned the only light in the room.

The boy hesitated, pained by the signs of deep anguish in his father's

face, turned and rapidly crossed the room.

The moment his back was turned, Norton swiftly and silently locked the

door, and with studied carelessness followed.

The boy began to search for the letter:

"I don't see it, sir."

The father, watching him with feverish eyes, started at his voice, raised

his hand to his forehead and walked quickly to his side:

"Yes, I--I--forgot--I put it away!"

He dropped limply into the chair before the desk, fumbled among the papers

and drew the letter from the pigeon-hole in which he had placed it.

He held it in his hand, shaking now like a leaf, and read again the scrawl

that he had blurred with tears and kisses. He placed his hand on the top of

the desk, rose with difficulty and looked for Tom. The boy had moved

quietly toward the table. The act was painfully significant of their new

relations. The sense of alienation cut the broken man to the quick. He

could scarcely see as he felt his way to the boy's side and extended the

open sheet of paper without a word.

Tom took the letter, turned his back on his father and read it in silence.

"How queer her handwriting!" he said at length.

Norton spoke in strained muffled tones:

"Yes--she--she was dying when she scrawled that. The mists of the other

world were gathering about her. I don't think she could see the paper"--the

voice broke, he fought for self-control and then went on--"but every tiny

slip of her pencil, each little weak hesitating mark etched itself in fire

on my heart"--the voice stopped and then went on--"you can read them?"

"Yes."

The father's long trembling finger traced slowly each word:

"'Remember that I love you and have forgiven----'"

"Forgiven what?" Tom interrupted.

Norton turned deadly pale, recovered himself and began in a low voice:

"You see, boy, I grew up under the old regime. Like a lot of other fellows

with whom I ran, I drank, gambled and played the devil--you know what that

meant in those days----"

"No, I don't," the boy interrupted. "That's just what I don't know. I

belong to a new generation. And you've made a sort of exception of me even

among the men of to-day. You taught me to keep away from women. I learned

the lesson. I formed clean habits, and so I don't know just what you mean

by that. Tell me plainly."

"It's hard to say it to you, my boy!" the older man faltered.

"I want to know it."

"I--I mean that twenty years ago it was more common than now for youngsters

to get mixed up with girls of negroid blood----"

The boy shrank back:

"You!--great God!"

"Yes, she came into my life at last--a sensuous young animal with wide,

bold eyes that knew everything and was not afraid. That sentence means the

shame from which I've guarded you with such infinite care----"

He paused and pointed again to the letter, tracing its words:

"'Rear our boy free from the curse!'--you--you--see why I have been so

desperately in earnest?"--Norton bent close with pleading eagerness: "And

that next sentence, there, you can read it? 'I had rather a thousand times

that he should die than this--My brooding spirit will watch and guard'"--he

paused and repeated--"'that he should die'--you--you--see that?"

The boy looked at his father's trembling hand and into his glittering eyes

with a start:

"Yes, yes, but, of course, that was only a moment's despair--no mother

could mean such a thing."

Norton's eyes fell, he moved uneasily, tried to speak again and was silent.

When he began his words were scarcely audible:

"We must part now in tenderness, my boy, as father and son--we--we--must do

that you know. You--you forgive me for striking you to-night?"

Tom turned away, struggled and finally answered:

"No."

The father followed eagerly:

"Tell me that it's all right!"

The boy's hand nervously fumbled at the cloth on the table:

"I--I--am glad I didn't do something worse!"

"Say that you forgive me! Why is it so hard?"

Tom turned his back:

"I don't know, Dad, I try, but--I--just can't!"

The father's hand touched the boy's arm timidly:

"You can never understand, my son, how my whole life has been bound up in

you! For years I've lived, worked, and dreamed and planned for you alone.

In your young manhood I've seen all I once hoped to be and have never been.

In your love I've found the healing of a broken heart. Many a night I've

gone out there alone in that old cemetery, knelt beside your mother's grave

and prayed her spirit to guide me that I might at least lead your little

feet aright----"

The boy moved slightly and the father's hand slipped limply from his, he

staggered back with a cry of despair, and fell prostrate on the lounge:

"I can endure anything on this earth but your hate, my boy! I can't endure

that--I can't--even for a moment!"

His form shook with incontrollable grief as he lay with his face buried in

his outstretched arms.

The boy struggled with conflicting pride and love, looked at the scrawled,

tear-stained letter he still held in his hand and then at the bowed figure,

hesitated a moment, and rushed to his father's side, knelt and slipped his

arm around the trembling figure:

"It's all right, Dad! I'll not remember--a single tear from your eyes blots

it all out!"

The father's hand felt blindly for the boy's and grasped it desperately:

"You won't remember a single harsh word that I've said?"

"No--no--it's all right," was the soothing answer, as he returned the

pressure.

Norton looked at him long and tenderly:

"How you remind me of _her_ to-night! The deep blue of your eyes, the

trembling of your lips when moved, your little tricks of speech, the tear

that quivers on your lash and never falls and the soul that's mirrored

there"--he paused and stroked the boy's head--"and her hair, the beaten

gold of honeycomb!"

His head sank and he was silent.

The boy again pressed his hand tenderly and rose, drawing his father to his

feet:

"I'm sorry to have hurt you, Dad. I'm sorry that we have to go--good-by!"

He turned and slowly moved toward the door. Norton slipped his right hand

quickly to the revolver, hesitated, his fingers relaxed and the deadly

thing dropped back into his pocket as he sank to his seat with a groan:

"Wait! Wait, Tom!"

The boy stopped.

"I--I've got to tell it to you now!" he went on hoarsely. "I--I tried to

save you this horror--but I couldn't--the way was too hard and cruel."

Tom took a step and looked up in surprise:

"The way--what way?"

"I couldn't do it," the father cried. "I just couldn't--and so I have to

tell you."

The boy spoke with sharp eagerness:

"Tell me what?"

"Now that I know you are married in all that word means and I have failed

to save you from it--I must give you the proofs that you demand. I must

prove to you that Helen _is_ a negress----"

A sudden terror crept into the young eyes:

"You--you have the proofs?"

"Yes!" the father nodded, placing his hand on his throat and fighting for

breath. He took a step toward the boy, and whispered:

"Cleo--is--her mother!"

Tom flinched as if struck a blow. The red blood rushed to his head and he

blanched with a death-like pallor:

"And you have been afraid of Cleo?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The father's head was slowly lowered and his hands moved in the slightest

gesture of dumb confession.

A half-articulate, maniac cry and the boy grasped him with trembling hands,

screaming in his face:

"God in Heaven, let me keep my reason for just a

moment!--So--you--are--Helen's----"

The bowed head sank lower.

"Father!"

Tom reeled, and fell into a chair with a groan:

"Lord have mercy on my lost soul!"

Norton solemnly lifted his eyes:

"God's full vengeance has fallen at last! You have married your own----"

The boy sprang to his feet covering his face:

"Don't! Don't! Helen doesn't know?"

"No."

"She mustn't!" he shivered, looking wildly at his father. "But why,

why--oh, dear God, why didn't you kill me before I knew!"

He sank back into the chair, his arms outstretched across the table, his

face hidden in voiceless shame.

The father slowly approached the prostrate figure, bent low and tenderly

placed his cheek against the blonde head, soothing it with trembling touch.

For a long while he remained thus, with no sound breaking the stillness

save the sobs that came from the limp form.

And then Norton said brokenly:

"I tried, my boy, to end it for us both without your knowing just now when

your back was turned, but I couldn't. It seemed too cowardly and cruel! I

just couldn't"--he paused, slowly drew the revolver from his pocket and

laid it on the table.

The boy felt the dull weight of the steel strike the velvet cover and knew

what had been done without lifting his head.

"Now you know," the father added, "what we both must do."

Tom rose staring at the thing on the dark red cloth, and lifted his eyes to

his father's.

"Yes, and hurry! Helen may come at any moment."

He had barely spoken when the knob of the door turned. A quick knock was

heard at the same instant and Helen's voice rang through the hall:

"Tom! Tom!"

Norton grasped the pistol, thrust it under the table-cover and pressed the

boy toward the door:

"Quick! Open it, at once!"

Tom stared in a stupor, unable to move until his father shook his arm:

"Quick--open it--let her in a moment--it's best."

He opened the door and Helen sprang in breathlessly.

CHAPTER XXX

THE MILLS OF GOD

Norton had dropped into a seat with apparent carelessness, while Tom stood

immovable, his face a mask.

The girl looked quickly from one to the other, her breath coming in quick

gasps.

She turned to Tom:

"Why did you lock the door--what does it mean?"

Norton hastened to answer, his tones reassuringly simple:

"Why, only that we wished to be alone for a few moments----"

"Yes, we understand each other now," Tom added.

Helen's eyes flashed cautiously from one to the other:

"I heard a strange noise"--she turned to the boy--"and, oh, Tom, darling, I

was so frightened! I thought I heard a struggle and then everything became

so still. I was wild--I couldn't wait any longer!"

"Why, it was really nothing," Tom answered her bravely smiling. "We--we did

have a little scene, and lost our temper for a moment, but you can see for

yourself it's all right now. We've thrashed the whole thing out and have

come to a perfect understanding!"

His words were convincing but not his manner. He hadn't dared to look her

in the face. His eyes were on the rug and his foot moved nervously.

"You are not deceiving me?" she asked trembling.

The boy appealed to his father:

"Haven't we come to a perfect understanding, Dad?"

Norton rose:

"Perfect, my son. It's all right, now, Helen."

"Just wait for me five minutes, dear," Tom pleaded.

"Can't I hear what you have to say?"

"We prefer to be alone," the father said gravely.

Again her eyes flashed from one to the other and rested on Tom. She rushed

to him and laid her hand appealingly on his arm:

"Oh, Tom, dear, am I not your wife?" the boy's head drooped--"must you have

a secret from me now?"

"Just a few minutes," Norton pleaded, "that's a good girl!"

"Only a few minutes, Helen," Tom urged.

"Please let me stay. Why were you both so pale when I came in?"

Father and son glanced at each other over her head. Norton hesitated and

said:

"You see we are perfectly calm now. All bitterness is gone from our hearts.

We are father and son again."

"Why do you look so queerly at me? Why do you look so strangely at each

other?"

"It's only your imagination, dear," Tom said.

"No, there's something wrong," Helen declared desperately. "I feel it in

the air of this room--in the strange silence between you. For God's sake

tell me what it means! Surely, I have the right to know"--she turned

suddenly to Norton--"You don't hate me now, do you, major?"

The somber brown eyes rested on her in a moment of intense silence and he

slowly said:

"I have never hated you, my child!"

"Then what is it?" she cried in anguish, turning again to Tom. "Tell me

what I can do to help you! I'll obey you, dearest, even if it's to lay my

life down. Don't send me away. Don't keep this secret from me. I feel its

chill in my heart. My place is by your side--tell me how I can help you!"

Tom looked at her intently:

"You say that you will obey me?"

"Yes--you are my lord and master!"

He seized her hand and led her to the door

"Then wait for me just five minutes."

She lifted her head pleadingly:

"You will let me come to you then?"

"Yes."

"You won't lock the door again?"

"Not now."

While Tom stood immovable, with a lingering look of tenderness she turned

and passed quickly from the room.

He closed the door softly, steadied himself before loosing the knob and

turned to his father in a burst of sudden rebellion:

"Oh, Dad! It can't be true! It can't be true! I can't believe it. Did you

look at her closely again?"

Norton drew himself wearily to his feet and spoke with despairing

certainty:

"Yes, yes, as I've looked at her a hundred times with growing wonder."

"She's not like you----"

"No more than you, my boy, and yet you're bone of my bone and flesh of my

flesh--it can't be helped----"

He paused and pointed to the revolver:

"Give it to me!"

The boy started to lift the cloth and the father caught his arm:

"But first--before you do," he faltered. "I want you to tell me now with

your own lips that you forgive me for what I must do--and then I think,

perhaps, I can--say it!"

Their eyes met in a long, tender, searching gaze:

"I forgive you," he softly murmured.

"Now give it to me!" the father firmly said, stepping back and lifting his

form erect.

The boy felt for the table, fumbled at the cloth, caught the weapon and

slowly lifted it toward his father's extended hand. He opened his eyes,

caught the expression of agony in the drawn face, the fingers relaxed and

the pistol fell to the floor. He threw himself blindly on his father, his

arms about his neck:

"Oh, Dad, it's too hard! Wait--wait--just a moment!"

The father held him close for a long while. His voice was very low when he

spoke at last:

"There's no appeal, my boy! The sin of your father is full grown and has

brought forth death. Yet I was not all to blame. We are caught to-night in

the grip of the sins of centuries. I tried to give my life to the people to

save the children of the future. My shame showed me the way as few men

could have seen it, and I have set in motion forces that can never be

stopped. Others will complete the work that I have begun. But our time has

come----"

"Yes, yes, I understand!"

The father's arms pressed the son in a last long embrace:

"What an end to all my hopes! Oh, my boy, heart of my heart!"

Tom's hand slowly slipped down and caught his father's:

"Good-by, Dad!"

Norton held the clasp with lingering tenderness as the boy slowly drew

away, measured four steps and calmly folded his arms, his head erect, his

broad young shoulders squared and thrown far back.

Cleo, who had crept into the hall, stood behind the curtains of the inner

door watching the scene with blanched face.

The father walked quickly to the revolver, picked it up, turned and lifted

it above his head.

With a smothered cry Cleo sprang into the room--but she was too late.

Norton had quickly dropped the pistol to the level of the eye and fired.

A tiny red spot flamed on the white skin of the boy's forehead, the

straight figure swayed, and pitched forward face down on the rug.

The woman staggered back, cowering in the shadows.

The father knelt beside the quivering form, clasped his left hand in Tom's,

placed the revolver to his temple and fired. The silver-gray head sank

slowly against the breast of the boy as a piercing scream from Helen's lips

rang through the silent hall.

CHAPTER XXXI

SIN FULL GROWN

The sensitive soul of the girl had seen the tragedy before she rushed into

the library. At the first shot she sprang to her feet, her heart in her

throat. The report had sounded queerly through the closed doors and she was

not sure. She had entered the hall, holding her breath, when the second

shot rang out its message of death.

She was not the woman who faints in an emergency. She paused just a moment

in the door, saw the ghastly heap on the floor and rushed to the spot.

She tore Tom's collar open and placed her ear over his heart:

"O God! He's alive--he's alive!"

She turned and saw Cleo leaning against the table with blanched face and

chattering teeth.

"Call Andy and Aunt Minerva--and go for the doctor--his heart's

beating--quick--the doctor--he's alive--we may save him!"

She knelt again on the floor, took Tom's head in her lap, wiped the blood

from the clean, white forehead, pressed her lips to his and sobbed:

"Come back, my own--it's I--Helen, your little wife--I'm calling you--you

can't die--you're too young and life's too dear. We've only begun to live,

my sweetheart! You shall not die!"

The tears were raining on his pale face and her cries had become little

wordless prayers when Andy and Minerva entered the room.

She nodded her head toward Norton's motionless body:

"Lift him on the lounge!"

They moved him tenderly:

"See if his heart's still beating," she commanded.

Andy reverently lowered his dusky face against the white bosom of his

master. When he lifted it the tears had blinded his eyes:

"Nobum," he said slowly, "he's done dead!"

The tick of the little French clock on the mantel beneath the mother's

portrait rang with painful clearness.

Helen raised her hand to Minerva:

"Open the windows and let the smoke out. I'll hold him in my arms until the

doctor comes."

"Yassum----"

Minerva drew the heavy curtains back from the tall windows, opened the

casements and the perfumed air of the beautiful Southern night swept into

the room.

A cannon boomed its final cry of victory from the Square and a rocket,

bursting above the tree-tops, flashed a ray of red light on the white face

of the dead.

CHAPTER XXXII

CONFESSION

When Dr. Williams entered the room Helen was still holding Tom's head in

her lap.

He had stirred once with a low groan.

"The major is dead, but Tom's alive, doctor!" she cried through her tears.

"He's going to live, too--I feel it--I know it--tell me that it's so!"

The lips trembled pitifully with the last words.

The doctor felt the pulse and was silent.

"It's all right? He's going to live--isn't he?" she asked pathetically.

"I can't tell yet, my child," was the calm answer.

He examined the wound and ran his hand over the blonde hair. His fingers

stopped suddenly and he felt the head carefully. He bent low, parted the

hair and found a damp blood mark three inches above the line of the

forehead.

"See!" he cried, "the ball came out here. His head was thrown far back, the

bullet struck the inner skull bone at an angle and glanced."

"What does it mean?" she asked breathlessly.

The doctor smiled:

"That the brain is untouched. He is only stunned and in a swoon. He'll be

well in two weeks."

Helen lifted her eyes and sobbed:

"O God!"

She tried to bend and kiss Tom's lips, her body swayed and she fell

backward in a dead faint.

Andy and Minerva carried her to her room, left Cleo to minister to her and

returned to help the doctor.

He examined Norton's body to make sure that life was extinct and placed the

body on an improvised bed on the floor until he should regain his senses.

In half an hour Tom looked into the doctor's face:

"Why, it's Doctor Williams?"

"Yes."

"What--what's happened?"

"It's only a scratch for you, my boy. You'll be well in a few days----"

"Well in a few days"--he repeated blankly. "I can't get well! I've got to

die"--his head dropped and he caught his breath.

The doctor waited for him to recover himself to ask the question that was

on his lips. He had gotten as yet no explanation of the tragedy save Cleo's

statement that the major had shot Tom and killed himself. He had guessed

that the ugly secret in Norton's life was in some way responsible.

"Why must you die, my boy?" he asked kindly.

Tom opened his eyes in a wild stare:

"Helen's my wife--we married secretly without my father knowing it. He has

just told me that Cleo is her mother and I have married my own----"

His voice broke and his head sank.

The doctor seized the boy's hand and spoke eagerly:

"It's a lie, boy! It's a lie! Take my word for it----"

Tom shook his head.

"I'll stake my life on it that it's a lie"--the old man repeated--"and I'll

prove it--I'll prove it from Cleo's lips!"

"You--you--can do it!" the boy said hopelessly, though his eyes flashed

with a new light.

"Keep still until I return!" the doctor cried, "and I'll bring Cleo with

me."

He placed the revolver in his pocket and hastily left the room, the boy's

eyes following him with feverish excitement.

He called Cleo into the hall and closed Helen's door.

The old man seized her hand with a cruel grip:

"Do you dare tell me that this girl is your daughter?"

She trembled and faltered:

"Yes!"

"You're a liar!" he hissed. "You may have fooled Norton for twenty years,

but you can't fool me. I've seen too much of this sort of thing. I'll stake

my immortal soul on it that no girl with Helen's pure white skin and

scarlet cheeks, clean-cut features and deep blue eyes can have in her body

a drop of negro blood!"

"She's mine all the same, and you know when she was born," the woman

persisted.

He could feel her body trembling, looked at her curiously and said:

"Come down stairs with me a minute."

Cleo drew back:

"I don't want to go in that room again!"

"You've got to come!"

He seized her roughly and drew her down the stairs into the library.

She gripped the door, panting in terror. He loosed her hands and pushed

her inside before the lounge on which the body of Norton lay, the cold

wide-open eyes staring straight into her face.

She looked a moment in abject horror, shivered and covered her eyes:

"Oh, my God, let me go!"

The doctor tore her hands from her face and confronted her. His snow-white

beard and hair, his tense figure and flaming anger seemed to the trembling

woman the image of an avenging fate as he solemnly cried:

"Here, in the presence of Death, with the all-seeing eye of God as your

witness, and the life of the boy you once held in your arms hanging on your

words, I ask if that girl is your daughter?"

The greenish eyes wavered, but the answer came clear at last:

"No----"

"I knew it!" the doctor cried. "Now the whole truth!"

The color mounted Tom's cheeks as he listened.

"My own baby died," she began falteringly, "I was wild with grief and

hunted for another. I found Helen in Norfolk at the house of an old woman

whom I knew, and she gave her to me----"

"Or you stole her--no matter"--the doctor interrupted--"Go on."

Helen had slipped down stairs, crept into the room unobserved and stood

listening.

"Who was the child's mother?" the doctor demanded.

Cleo was gasping for breath:

"The daughter of an old fool who had disowned her because she ran away and

married a poor white boy--the husband died--the father never forgave her.

When the baby was born the mother died, too, and I got the child from the

old nurse--she's pure white--there's not a stain of any kind on her birth!"

With a cry of joy Helen knelt and drew Tom into her arms:

"Oh, darling, did you hear it--oh, my sweetheart, did you hear it?"

The boy's head sank on her breast and he breathed softly:

"Thank God!"

CHAPTER XXXIII

HEALING

The years brought their healing to wounded hearts. Tom Norton refused to

leave his old home. He came of a breed of men who had never known how to

quit. He faced the world and with grim determination took up the work for

the Republic which his father had begun.

With tireless voice his paper pleads for the purity of the race. Its

circulation steadily increases and its influence deepens and widens.

The patter of a baby's feet again echoes through the wide hall behind the

white fluted columns. The young father and mother have taught his little

hands to place flowers on the two green mounds beneath the oak in the

cemetery. He is not old enough yet to understand, and so the last time they

were there he opened his eyes wide at his mother's tears and lisped:

"Are 'oo hurt, mama?"

"No, my dear, I'm happy now."

"Why do 'oo cry?"

"For a great man I knew a little while, loved and lost, dearest--your

grandfather for whom we named you."

Little Dan's eyes grew very serious as he looked again at the flower-strewn

graves and wondered what it all meant.

But the thing which marks the Norton home with peculiar distinction is that

since the night of his father's death, Tom has never allowed a negro to

cross the threshold or enter its gates.

THE END

* * * * *

NOVELS OF SOUTHERN LIFE

By THOMAS DIXON, JR.

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

_THE LEOPARD'S SPOTS_: A Story of the White Man's Burden, 1865-1900. With

illustrations by C. D. Williams.

A tale of the South about the dramatic events of Destruction.

Reconstruction and Upbuilding. The work is able and eloquent and the

verifiable events of history are followed closely in the development of a

story full of struggle.

_THE CLANSMAN._ With illustrations by Arthur I. Keller.

While not connected with it in any way, this is a companion volume to the

author's "epoch-making" story _The Leopard's Spots_. It is a novel with a

great deal to it, and which very properly is going to interest many

thousands of readers. * * * It is, first of all, a forceful, dramatic,

absorbing love story, with a sequence of events so surprising that one is

prepared for the fact that much of it is founded on actual happenings; but

Mr. Dixon has, as before, a deeper purpose--he has aimed to show that the

original formers of the Ku Klux Klan were modern knights errant taking the

only means at hand to right intolerable wrongs.

_THE TRAITOR._ A Story of the Fall of the Invisible Empire. Illustrations

by C. D. Williams.

The third and last book in this remarkable trilogy of novels relating to

Southern Reconstruction. It is a thrilling story of love, adventure,

treason, and the United States Secret Service dealing with the decline and

fall of the Ku Klux Klan.

_COMRADES._ Illustrations by C. D. Williams.

A novel dealing with the establishment of a Socialistic Colony upon a

deserted island off the coast of California. The way of disillusionment is

the course over which Mr. Dixon conducts the reader.

_THE ONE WOMAN._ A Story of Modern Utopia.

A love story and character study of three strong men and two fascinating

women. In swift, unified, and dramatic action, we see Socialism a deadly

force, in the hour of the eclipse of Faith, destroying the home life and

weakening the fiber of Anglo Saxon manhood.

* * * * *

STORIES OF WESTERN LIFE

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

_RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE_, By Zane Grey. Illustrated by Douglas Duer.

In this picturesque romance of Utah of some forty years ago, we are

permitted to see the unscrupulous methods employed by the invisible hand of

the Mormon Church to break the will of those refusing to conform to its

rule.

_FRIAR TUCK_, By Robert Alexander Wason. Illustrated by Stanley L. Wood.

Happy Hawkins tells us, in his humorous way, how Friar Tuck lived among the

Cowboys, how he adjusted their quarrels and love affairs and how he fought

with them and for them when occasion required.

_THE SKY PILOT_, By Ralph Connor. Illustrated by Louis Rhead.

There is no novel, dealing with the rough existence of cowboys, so charming

in the telling, abounding as it does with the freshest and the truest

pathos.

_THE EMIGRANT TRAIL_, By Geraldine Bonner. Colored frontispiece by John

Rae.

The book relates the adventures of a party on its overland pilgrimage, and

the birth and growth of the absorbing love of two strong men for a charming

heroine.

_THE BOSS OF WIND RIVER_, By A. M. Chisholm. Illustrated by Frank Tenney

Johnson.

This is a strong, virile novel with the lumber industry for its central

theme and a love story full of interest as a sort of subplot.

_A PRAIRIE COURTSHIP_, By Harold Bindloss.

A story of Canadian prairies in which the hero is stirred, through the

influence of his love for a woman, to settle down to the heroic business of

pioneer farming.

_JOYCE OF THE NORTH WOODS_, By Harriet T. Comstock. Illustrated by John

Cassel.

A story of the deep woods that shows the power of love at work among its

primitive dwellers. It is a tensely moving study of the human heart and its

aspirations that unfolds itself through thrilling situations and dramatic

developments.

* * * * *

JOHN FOX, JR'S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset and Dunlap's list

_THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

[Illustration]

The "lonesome pine" from which the story takes its name was a tall tree

that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top. The fame of the pine

lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he

finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the

_footprints of a girl_. And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the

trail of these girlish footprints led the young engineer a madder chase

than "the trail of the lonesome pine."

_THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as "Kingdom Come." It is

a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often

springs the flower of civilization.

"Chad" the "little shepherd" did not know who he was nor whence he came--he

had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter

with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about

whom there was such a mystery--a charming waif, by the way, who could play

the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

_A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND._ Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland the lair of

moonshiner and feudsman. The knight is a moonshiner's son, and the heroine

a beautiful girl perversely christened "The Blight." Two impetuous young

Southerners' fall under the spell of "The Blight's" charms and she learns

what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the

mountaineers.

Included in this volume is "Hell fer-Sartain" and other stories, some of

Mr. Fox's most entertaining Cumberland valley narratives.

* * * * *

MYRTLE REED'S NOVELS

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

_LAVENDER AND OLD LACE._

[Illustration]

A charming story of a quaint corner of New England where bygone romance

finds a modern parallel. The story centers round the coming of love to the

young people on the staff of a newspaper--and it is one of the prettiest,

sweetest and quaintest of old fashioned love stories, * * * a rare book,

exquisite in spirit and conception, full of delicate fancy, of tenderness,

of delightful humor and spontaniety.

_A SPINNER IN THE SUN._

Miss Myrtle Reed may always be depended upon to write a story in which

poetry, charm, tenderness and humor are combined into a clever and

entertaining book. Her characters are delightful and she always displays a

quaint humor of expression and a quiet feeling of pathos which give a touch

of active realism to all her writings. In "A Spinner in the Sun" she tells

an old-fashioned love story, of a veiled lady who lives in solitude and

whose features her neighbors have never seen. There is a mystery at the

heart of the book that throws over it the glamour of romance.

_THE MASTER'S VIOLIN,_

A love story in a musical atmosphere. A picturesque, old German virtuoso is

the reverent possessor of a genuine "Cremona." He consents to take for his

pupil a handsome youth who proves to have an aptitude for technique, but

not the soul of an artist. The youth has led the happy, careless life of a

modern, well-to-do young American and he cannot, with his meagre past,

express the love, the passion and the tragedies of life and all its happy

phases as can the master who has lived life in all its fulness. But a girl

comes into his life--a beautiful bit of human driftwood that his aunt had

taken into her heart and home, and through his passionate love for her, he

learns the lessons that life has to give--and his soul awakes.

Founded on a fact that all artists realize.

* * * * *

LOUIS TRACY'S

CAPTIVATING AND EXHILARATING ROMANCES

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

_CYNTHIA'S CHAUFFEUR._ Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

A pretty American girl in London is touring in a car with a chauffeur whose

identity puzzles her. An amusing mystery.

_THE STOWAWAY GIRL._ Illustrated by Nesbitt Benson.

A shipwreck, a lovely girl stowaway, a rascally captain, a fascinating

officer, and thrilling adventures in South Seas.

_THE CAPTAIN OF THE KANSAS._

Love and the salt sea, a helpless ship whirled into the hands of cannibals,

desperate fighting and a tender romance.

_THE MESSAGE._ Illustrated by Joseph Cummings Chase.

A bit of parchment found in the figurehead of an old vessel tells of a

buried treasure. A thrilling mystery develops.

_THE PILLAR OF LIGHT._

The pillar thus designated was a lighthouse, and the author tells with

exciting detail the terrible dilemma of its cut off inhabitants.

_THE WHEEL O'FORTUNE._ With illustrations by James Montgomery Flagg.

The story deals with the finding of a papyrus containing the particulars of

some of the treasures of the Queen of Sheba.

_A SON OF THE IMMORTALS._ Illustrated by Howard Chandler Christy.

A young American is proclaimed king of a little Balkan Kingdom, and a

pretty Parisian art student is the power behind the throne.

_THE WINGS OF THE MORNING._

A sort of Robinson Crusoe _redivivus_ with modern settings and a very

pretty love story added. The hero and heroine, are the only survivors of a

wreck, and have many thrilling adventures on their desert island.

* * * * *

THE NOVELS OF

STEWART EDWARD WHITE

_THE RULES OF THE GAME._ Illustrated by Lajaren A. Hiller.

The romance of the son of "The Riverman." The young college hero goes into

the lumber camp, is antagonized by "graft" and comes into the romance of

his life.

_ARIZONA NIGHTS._ Illus. and cover inlay by N. C. Wyeth.

A series of spirited tales emphasizing some phases of the life of the

ranch, plains and desert. A masterpiece.

_THE BLAZED TRAIL._ With illustrations by Thomas Fogarty.

A wholesome story with gleams of humor, telling of a young man who blazed

his way to fortune through the heart of the Michigan pines.

_THE CLAIM JUMPERS._ A Romance.

The tenderfoot manager of a mine in a lonesome gulch of the Black Hills has

a hard time of it, but "wins out" in more ways than one.

_CONJUROR'S HOUSE._ Illustrated Theatrical Edition.

Dramatized under the title of "The Call of the North."

Conjuror's House is a Hudson Bay trading post where the head factor is the

absolute lord. A young fellow risked his life and won a bride on this

forbidden land.

_THE MAGIC FOREST._ A Modern Fairy Tale. Illustrated.

The sympathetic way in which the children of the wild and their life is

treated could only belong to one who is in love with the forest and open

air. Based on fact.

_THE RIVERMAN._ Illus. by N. C. Wyeth and C. Underwood.

The story of a man's fight against a river and of a struggle between

honesty and grit on the one side, and dishonesty and shrewdness on the

other.

_THE SILENT PLACES._ Illustrations by Philip R. Goodwin.

The wonders of the northern forests, the heights of feminine devotion, and

masculine power, the intelligence of the Caucasian and the instinct of the

Indian, are all finely drawn in this story.

_THE WESTERNERS._

A story of the Black Hills that is justly placed among the best American

novels. It portrays the life of the new West as no other book has done in

recent years.

_THE MYSTERY._ In collaboration with Samuel Hopkins Adams.

With illustrations by Will Crawford.

The disappearance of three successive crews from the stout ship "Laughing

Lass" in mid-Pacific, is a mystery weird and inscrutable. In the solution,

there is a story of the most exciting voyage that man ever undertook.

* * * * *

TITLES SELECTED FROM

GROSSET & DUNLAP'S LIST

May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list

_THE SIEGE OF THE SEVEN SUITORS._ By Meredith Nicholson. Illustrated by C.

Coles Phillips and Reginald Birch.

Seven suitors vie with each other for the love of a beautiful girl, and she

subjects them to a test that is full of mystery, magic and sheer amusement.

_THE MAGNET._ By Henry C. Rowland. Illustrated by Clarence F. Underwood.

The story of a remarkable courtship involving three pretty girls on a

yacht, a poet-lover in pursuit, and a mix-up in the names of the girls.

_THE TURN OF THE ROAD._ By Eugenia Brooks Frothingham.

A beautiful young opera singer chooses professional success instead of

love, but comes to a place in life where the call of the heart is stronger

than worldly success.

_SCOTTIE AND HIS LADY._ By Margaret Morse. Illustrated by Harold M. Brett.

A young girl whose affections have been blighted is presented with a Scotch

Collie to divert her mind, and the roving adventures of her pet lead the

young mistress into another romance.

_SHEILA VEDDER._ By Amelia E. Barr. Frontispiece by Harrison Fisher.

A very beautiful romance of the Shetland Islands, with a handsome, strong

willed hero and a lovely girl of Gaelic blood as heroine. A sequel to "Jan

Vedder's Wife."

_JOHN WARD, PREACHER._ By Margaret Deland.

The first big success of this much loved American novelist. It is a

powerful portrayal of a young clergyman's attempt to win his beautiful wife

to his own narrow creed.

_THE TRAIL OF NINETY-EIGHT._ By Robert W. Service. Illustrated by Maynard

Dixon.

One of the best stories of "Vagabondia" ever written, and one of the most

accurate and picturesque of the stampede of gold seekers to the Yukon. The

love story embedded in the narrative is strikingly original.

_THE SECOND WIFE._ By Thompson Buchanan. Illustrated by W. W. Fawcett.

Harrison Fisher wrapper printed in four colors and gold.

An intensely interesting story of a marital complication in a wealthy New

York family involving the happiness of a beautiful young girl.

_TESS OF THE STORM COUNTRY._ By Grace Miller White. Illustrated by Howard

Chandler Christy.

An amazingly vivid picture of low class life in a New York college town,

with a heroine beautiful and noble, who makes a great sacrifice for love.

_FROM THE VALLEY OF THE MISSING._ By Grace Miller White.

Frontispiece and wrapper in colors by Penthyn Stanlaws.

Another story of "the storm country." Two beautiful children are kidnapped

from a wealthy home and appear many years after showing the effects of a

deep, malicious scheme behind their disappearance.

_THE LIGHTED MATCH._ By Charles Neville Buck. Illustrated by R. F.

Schabelitz.

A lovely princess travels incognito through the States and falls in love

with an American man. There are ties that bind her to someone in her own

home, and the great plot revolves round her efforts to work her way out.

_MAUD BAXTER._ By C. C. Hotchkiss. Illustrated by Will Grefe.

A romance both daring and delightful, involving an American girl and a

young man who had been impressed into English service during the

Revolution.

_THE HIGHWAYMAN._ By Guy Rawlence. Illustrated by Will Grefe.

A French beauty of mysterious antecedents wins the love of an Englishman of

title. Developments of a startling character and a clever untangling of

affairs hold the reader's interest.

_THE PURPLE STOCKINGS._ By Edward Salisbury Field. Illustrated in colors;

marginal illustrations.

A young New York business man, his pretty sweetheart, his sentimental

stenographer, and his fashionable sister are all mixed up in a

misunderstanding that surpasses anything in the way of comedy in years. A

story with a laugh on every page.

_Ask for complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_

GROSSET & DUNLAP, 526 WEST 26th ST., NEW YORK